


threadbare but never worn

by frostbitten_cheeks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbitten_cheeks/pseuds/frostbitten_cheeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six Christmases shared between them, six conversations they never have, six mistletoe fear coerces them to avoid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	threadbare but never worn

**Author's Note:**

> a christmas fic without the element of fluff, because christmas isn’t the season of joy but the season of reflection. not really angst, though. expect the best.
> 
> (link to this fic [on tumblr](http://literaryphan.tumblr.com/post/105610465911/threadbare-but-never-worn))

1.

 

-

 

 

Phil’s mum presses a mug into his hands, and her eyes look like she’s asking him for something when she tells him conspiratorially that she’s hidden a mistletoe somewhere in the house, just to spite her sons.

The room smells of baking, and Dan’s fingers burn on the hot ceramic but he doesn’t put the mug down, because it’s a distraction. He smiles at her and doesn’t answer, because he isn’t dumb, isn’t naïve, can see the looks she sneaks them even when Phil doesn’t.

He smiles and she does, too, and somehow, Dan doesn’t tell Phil about the mistletoe.

He finds it, though. Slips from Phil’s bedroom to the toilet in the middle of the night, feet on creaking floorboards and walls whispering with the secrets of the night. He finds the mistletoe in the alcove between the staircases, and thinks,  _maybe_ , and it’s the possibility itself that scares him.

He still doesn’t tell Phil, and the knowledge taunts him in the back of his mind. When it’s time to go home, he doesn’t miss the disappointed look in Phil’s mum’s eyes as she stares at the lonely mistletoe, and Dan wants to tell her,  _maybe_ , but doesn’t.

Phil hugs him when he leaves, and he clutches onto the back of Phil’s thick coat and doesn’t tell him of what they narrowly avoided by pure chance.

 

 

-

 

2.

 

-

 

 

They build the tree from dozens of small branches that come in a cardboard box, and Phil says it’s metaphorical as Dan rolls his eyes for the sake of it, even though he concurs. The camera’s still rolling somewhere in the background, and Phil tells him it’s three in the morning with a defeated expression. They look at the piles of decorations they’ve stacked around them and agree,  _another day_.

Phil turns off the camera and Dan lies down on the floor, bringing the back of his hand to shield his eyes from the flicker of the fairy lights. He’s tired and he’s hungry, and Phil’s talking about finishing filming on Friday but Dan’s not listening, and it’s okay, because Phil knows he’s not.

He lies down next to Dan and their bodies press together from shoulders to thighs, and the floor is dusty, they should probably get up, but they don’t. Dan stares at the ceiling and Phil tells him about childhood Christmases and Dan smiles every time it’s a story he’s already heard.

Phil tells him that his mum has a thing for mistletoes, a belief they could bring people together, could unite true love. He tells this with a toothy grin directed at the peeling paint on the ceiling and Dan doesn’t tell him of the secret his mum’s pressed into his hands with his tea the previous year, just reminds him that his mum also believes in ghosts and is superstitious to an alarming degree.

The idea of hanging one by the tree is left in the air once Phil voices it. It’s suggested with a smile, with a loophole, and Dan knows Phil’s not really serious but he wouldn’t back out if Dan would say yes.

Dan says it’s Phil’s tree, and they both know that’s not really true, because it’s theirs. The mistletoe goes unmentioned.

 

 

-

 

3.

 

-

 

 

Cleaning their kitchen after the cookies is harder than it looks, so they don’t. It’s unwise and they would be too lazy to do this come morning, but this is how they work as flatemates, work as friends. The wise and the desired aren’t always aligned, and they let it be.

Phil swipes sugar into his mouth with his fingertip and Dan watches from the other side of the counter, leaning his face on his elbows. He’s drowning in tinsel and garlands and the festivity they’ve whitewashed their flat with, and this doesn’t feel like Christmas, but it feels like something. Maybe it’s a new kind of holiday spirit. Maybe it’s being a grown-up.

Phil says it’s their flat and so they can do what they want, as an excuse for leaving the kitchen to rot and for eating sugar cookies for dinner. He said the same thing when they decorated, when he set the plastic tree into the space between the television and the wall, when he wrapped every soft toy they owned with shimmer and glitter so no corner would be left untouched.

They don’t have the mistletoe conversation that year. Maybe because it feels like uncharted territory, now that the walls are theirs to share.

They end up going to one Christmas party that year, dark room and loud laughter and drinks passed from hand to hand. There’s the familiar spot of green hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, a permission for the in love, and they don’t talk about it but somehow they form an agreement to skirt around that part of the room. Dan absently touches his chest with his fingers and wonders if that’s the disappointment he was supposed to feel two years ago.

 

 

-

 

4.

 

-

 

 

The London air bites at Dan’s skin when he breathes it in, and the city is lit up outside his window. He thinks he kind of misses having the balcony back in Manchester. He wonders if in the case that there was a god, would it consider the city its own Christmas tree to decorate.

Phil leaves glasses of water on Dan’s desk every time he enters. He never says anything, and Dan doesn’t know if he’s checking for vital signs or if he’s simply pledging to his existence, confined inside these walls. Sometimes he brings decorations with him, and Dan doesn’t ask to help him decorate the lounge, but he does scatter the ones Phil leaves around his room. He also drinks the water, even though he hasn’t been asked to.

It’s almost two in the morning and Dan blinks at the clock and the clock blinks back. Christmas is days away, and Dan thinks of how the holidays stopped feeling like it some time ago, without any warning. He remembers thinking this the previous year, and decides growing up isn’t for him if this is the price he has to pay.

Phil brings him water and tinsel and mistletoe. Dan stares at the last one when he sees it, and wonders if this would be the year they’ll talk about it. He shuts it in his drawer, and Phil doesn’t ask where it went. He figures it’s probably not.

 

 

-

 

5.

 

-

 

 

Louise joins him in the corner of the room, pressed against the wall with a glass in his hand and a void in his eyes. She doesn’t ask if he’s okay, because maybe she knows him better than that, or maybe she sees the way he watches Zoe singing and Matt dancing and Phil laughing until he can’t breathe.

She swirls the liquid in her own glass and leans her head on his shoulder, the two of them a tight fit against the wall. He appreciates her presence, he thinks. He can never tell apart when he’s looking to be alone and when he’s succumbing himself to it.

She asks him for his New Year’s resolution, and doesn’t let him slip when he argues that Christmas isn’t over just yet. It’s a new sensation for him, because he’s used to Phil, who only asks important questions when he feels like they need to be voiced aloud. He never presses harder than Dan asks him to. Maybe it’s because he already knows the answers.

He stares at the reflection of lights in his glass and smiles when he says this year he truly would get fit. She sees past his smile, and he knows this. He also knows she’s not stupid and she won’t ask for the truth.

They lean against the wall and stare at the party spinning in front of them, and he thinks maybe Louise isn’t so different from Phil. Maybe she sees him, as well, sees the look he casts at the mistletoe above every door, the look he tries so very much to hide. Maybe she makes the connection to the resolution he won’t share.

The difference is Phil lets him be because Phil is just as scared as he is. Louise isn’t Phil in that matter. Louise tells him he could open any door if he won’t let fear stop him, and if she means that more literally than is evident, Dan chooses to ignore her.

 

 

-

 

6.

 

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Phil finds him in the office and tugs the headphones off his ears, hands him the phone and tells him someone wants to wish him Merry Christmas. Dan doesn’t know what he expects, but when Phil’s mum’s cheerful voice come through the other end, he thinks he should be less surprised.

Phil settles into the sofa behind Dan and lets his mum chatter Dan’s ear off, because he knows it’s welcome even if Dan won’t admit it. Dan listens as Phil’s mum tells him about the turkey she’s burnt and the gifts she bought and the neighbours who came to see her just for the holidays. For those few minutes, it feels more like Christmas than it has in years. Dan wonders what it is about her that makes him feel like this.

He toys with the pen on the desk and swirls in the chair, watches Phil struggle with an app on his phone. Probably Crossy Road, he tells Phil’s mum. Phil doesn’t look up when he says this, and Dan grins when her voice betrays the eye roll she grants them in response to this.

The phone is heating against his ear but he doesn’t hang up, even when he loses focus. Her words blur together, food and family and holiday plans, and she asks what he bought Phil and doesn’t wait for his answer before she tells him her own gift. It makes him feel like he’s eighteen again and he’s spending the holiday at her house, but he doesn’t know why.

She says they have a big tree this year, a real one, because their new house has the space. He tells her they haven’t even put theirs up yet, says this with a pointed look at Phil, and Phil looks up from his game to give a sheepish smile of no real shame. His words catch in his throat when he says this, though. Maybe it’s because it’s weird referring to things as  _theirs_  to her ears, even when it’s obvious. Sometimes he feels like she lets herself see more than he does.

Somehow she asks him about mistletoes. Dan remembers that Christmas a few years back, lying on the dusty floor with the half-done tree lighting up the room, back when they didn’t have the luxury of calling things  _theirs_ so freely. He remembers that story, the belief of a mere plant she still holds for no apparent reason. It reminds him of her son, and he smiles. He knows she smiles as well when the fondness finds its way into his voice.

He thinks of that mistletoe in the alcove between staircases, back when possibilities lit his path and when she held barely disguised hope. He thinks that perhaps possibilities only slip away if you let them. He thinks of the mistletoe still shut away in his drawer, thinks of New Years’ resolutions that haven’t come true. He wonders if this would be the year they would finally talk about it, and remembers how he never said the maybe on his tongue.

He does, this time. He says,  _maybe_ , and it tastes like the festivity he’s lost somewhere along the line. Phil looks up at him like he understands, even when more than half the conversation is lost on him. Dan smiles bravely, and thinks that  _maybe_  is a function of fear.


End file.
